If you ask most kids today about hip-hop, they’ll spit out the names of recording artists they see on TV: Eminem, P. Diddy, J. L o, Beyonce. They’ll tell you about the songs they like and the clothes they want to buy. They’ll tell you about the indisputable zones of hip-hop like “EO” (East Orange, New Jersey), the “ATL” (Atlanta, Georgia), and the “West Side” (Los Angeles, California), neighborhoods they feel they know because they’ve seen them in all the glossiest, “flossiest” music videos. Hip-hop is natural to these kids, like air or water, just there, a part of the digital landscape that streams through their lives.

I watch this cultural sea change with fascination. It astounds me that hip-hop has grown into a global industry, a force that dominates youth culture from Paris to Prague, Tokyo to Timbuktu. I can’t believe that in small, all-white towns like Lincoln, Nebraska, high school boys wear their clothes in the latest “steelo”: pants sagging off their waists, sports jerseys hanging to their knees, baseball hats cocked to one side. Even in the pueblos of Mexico, where mariachi bands and old school crooners still rule, it is hip-hop that sells cars, sodas, and children’s toys on TV.

The vast empire of hip-hop amazes me because I knew hip-hop before it was hip-hop. I was there when it all began.

I remember meeting him, and how
lonely he seemed. And shy. And fragile. I'm not sure there is much to
say. I've been playing his music, and reflecting on the price of fame
and celebrity. The way public people often mask a horrific private
reality. The toll of it all. The way we consume the gifted ones, exalt
them, imprison them. Why I think Angelina and Brad take the kids to
Kmart. If they don't try to live outside of it, they will grow up
trapped in the gilded cage.

Of course, "Rock with You" provided the soundtrack for my first kiss, alongside all the other MJ moments. But the cost! I could have lived without the songs. I think Michael could have, too.

When I listen to this song, to the refrain, What about us? I have to ask the question--What about him?

What frustrates about this "excitement" on Salon and all the other more "mainstream" blogs, is the way editors and many readers ignore the work
of women outside of their "milieu" be they poor, black, Asian-American, gay, male, community-college educated or otherwise.

My book Baby Love, for example, is also about the subject of feminism and motherhood and making a surprising and seemingly "anti-feminist" choice, and yet received none of
the nuanced treatment. In fact, Salon used my piece on this exact
subject to excoriate me personally, running an ill-informed post by Phyllis Chesler in which I was labeled misguided,
confused, and in the throes of some kind of misplaced mother-daughter
drama. My
work was dismissed as personal pathology.

Which brings us to Katie
Roiphe. Good gracious, she and I hashed it out on Charlie Rose ten
years ago. Her intellect is no more superior, her writing no more
"eloquent," but her
privilege is, truly, many more generations deep, and certain editors apparently believe she has much more in common with their readers--an unfair assessment.

The entire
episode reminds me of one of the more insightful things my mother
told me (and regardless of the current state of our relationship, my mother has told me MANY insightful things):

"We read them,
but really, they do not read us."

Meaning, of course, that
many white women of privilege and access think what they write is new because they don't really
bother to read the work of women (and men) outside of their race and/or class. And yet we think nothing of
reading theirs and weighing their contributions as part of our process
of informing ourselves as we begin to do our own work.

And,
really, truly, the bottom line? I blame it on (F)eminism. Why is it that women of privilege are able to do this with impunity in the name of (F)eminism?

Because this kind of racial and economic apartheid is built into contemporary,
especially Second Wave, (F)eminism. This latest exchange of
pseudo-philosophical banter is just one more line item on an exhaustive
list of betrayals, insults, and selective dismissals of the work of
many self-identified feminists and others who have long ago abandoned their affiliation.

As we approach the airing of Black in America Pt 2, I thought I'd pull out my post from the Root that ricocheted across the web last year in response to Pt 1, and was then erased entirely when the Root did their site re-design.

“Direct
inspiration for ‘Journey In Satchidananda’ comes from my meeting and
association with someone who is near and dear to me. I am speaking of
my own beloved spiritual preceptor, Swami Satchidananda. Swamiji is the
first example I have seen in recent years of Universal Love or God in
action. He expresses an impersonal love which encompasses thousands of
people. Anyone listening to this selection should try to envision
himself floating on an ocean of Satchidanandaji’s love, which is
literally carrying countless devotees across the vicissitudes and
stormy blasts of life to the other shore. Satchidananda means
knowledge, existence, bliss."

"None of us can ever retrieve that innocence before
all theory when art knew no need to justify itself, when one did not
ask of a work what it said because one knew (or thought one knew) what it did.
From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of
defending art."

I like to visit the Campaign for Love and Forgiveness from time to time. This piece especially spoke to me today. The online ritual of forgiveness is a favorite aspect of this ongoing project.

From their site:

Celebrate the Happiness of Another
In The Kabbalah of Envy,
Rabbi Nilton Bonder explains a practice that will reinforce love in any
situation. "Yiddish has a very special verb, unknown to most other
languages: farginen. It means to open space, to share pleasure;
it is the exact opposite of the verb to envy. While envy means
disliking or resenting the happiness of others, farginen means making a pact with another individual's pleasure or happiness."

The next time you hear about someone else's good fortune, notice
your reaction. Do you find yourself having to force a smile and giving
rather insincere congratulations? Do you ask, "Why didn't this happen
to me?" It is in such moments that many relationships start to
deteriorate, so it is important to be able to practice farginen with another person instead.

"To develop the ability to farginen,"
Bonder advises, "we must first recall from our own experience those
moments when we were able to do it. And if this feeling was sincere, it
will certainly have been felt with great happiness, a kind of
catharsis. Every time we are able to celebrate someone else's
happiness, we will, by definition, have greater reason to celebrate
ourselves. In this way, we can widen our chances for enjoying life,
freeing ourselves from the imprisonment of our own luck. Farginen sets up networks of confidence that enrich life."

Show Simple Affection Do you shy away from hugging family or
friends? From putting an arm around someone's shoulder or showing
affection to your husband, wife or partner in front of your children?
Many of us like to receive affection. A pat on the back, a smile and
squeeze of a hand can generate good feelings. Still, social conventions
and fear of what people may think can stop us from expressing our
feelings in simple physical gestures. Perhaps we need more of that.
Over the next week, try showing more affection to your family and
friends. Note how it makes you feel and whether you detect any shifts
in your relationships because of it.